Here Comes the Boom

The “Boom” is that whatever minor modicum of talent Kevin James has is rendered meaningless by the fact that he continually chooses these insipid, moron friendly comedies to star in. This movie proceeds from the assumption that the audience will willingly trade their common sense for the opportunity to “feel good” and then proceeds to build a farfetched scenario laden with implausible occurrences, featuring stereotypical characters. “Here Comes the Boom” is exactly the dumbed down tripe you suspect it is.

“Boom”.

Kevin James stars as some dumb jerk teacher… Mr something. Do you need to know his name? Anyways, this schlub apparently was an inspirational teacher a decade ago, but now he’s that “I dont give a crap” teacher you see in movies 20 times a year who asks the students to open their books and then reads a paper during class. Budget cuts are announced and the principal reveals his intention to cut the music program, which in turn will cost the job of the music teacher (Henry Winkler) – because that’s how people losing their jobs always goes. They’re announced publicly. With tons of notice. You know. Anyways, suddenly Kevin James gives a shit again. He announces he’s going to earn the $40 some odd thousand that it will take to make up the budget shortfall. At which point, my mind immediately snapped to… ok, are you going to do that on an annual basis? Because obviously, that wont fix the budget shortfall permanently… but you know, people who like these movies don’t understand that concept anyways, so I just moved on. So did the movie. I guess they threw a toss-off line about earning tenure or something… but Winkler’s like 70 years old! He doesn’t have tenure by now? Arrragh. Sorry.

James starts his adventure to earn the money by teaching a citizenship course so that the movie can interject some “Me no speakee English” comedy to try to get me to kill myself. It’s there that he meets the foreigner who puts the idea of fighting MMA into his head. When James stops by to tutor him, there’s a fight on. Luckily, this guy is also an ex MMA competitor, so when James decides to fight, he’s got a trainer and a cornerman to yell the ringside wisdom that James needs to succeed, like, “DEFENSE!” and “GET UP!” Apparently, James’ whatever the hell his character’s name was was a wrestler in college, so that qualifies him to have a chance of not getting his face smashed-in in a cage match.

Thus James embarks on this mission to fight in a sport that he’s not qualified for, in order to earn money to save someone else’s job. For the most part, “Here Comes the Boom” has the common decency not to show some magical transformation that turns him into a super-competitor or anything… he typically loses or gets lucky wins in the ring. But that doesn’t stop them from sanitizing the ring beatings he takes. He drags himself to Salma Hayek’s school nurse character in charming enough shape that they can flirt, as opposed to getting his ass carried out of the ring by paramedics, with nothing left but a pan of &$%#ing lasagna for a face. That’s ok, I suppose it wouldn’t have made sense for him to have taken a realistic beatings from those watered down, family friendly fight scenes anyways.

I mean… even if you havent seen this movie, you know what goes on, right? School gets behind him as he gets closer and closer to the goal, in the end, he’s even winning over the asshole principal who wanted to stop him, and Hayek starts falling for him even though he’s risking bodily harm for an ill-advised fiscal mission that – at best – will temporarily stave off resource reallocation at his school.

James is affable, but watching him coast through dreck like this churns my stomach. Henry Winkler practically destroys his entire “Arrested Development” cache in one fell swoop and is now squarely back in “Dude, what the hell, you used to be the Fonz…” sad to see territory. There are so many stereotypical characters in this movie that it may set a record. I swear, this movie insulted me by name a couple of times.

Was waiting to see what you would say on this. I haven’t found one Kevin James film in the remotest funny. I never really cared for him as a stand-up either. He had a few funny things, then again all comics do. Even when he’s in movies with big name comedians and actors, he still fails. Adam Sandler’s Grown-Ups comes to mind, except when he did that smash into the tree on the rope swing, I can’t remember anything else funny he did or said.

I don’t even rent his movies, that’s how low on the scale I have him. That Mall Cop one was atrocious.

Personally, Henry Winkler was back in “Dude, what the hell, you used to be the Fonz…” mode when I first saw him hocking reverse mortgages during the Price Is Right.

The first thing I saw with Kevin James in it was his stupid sketch during one year’s Just For Laughs, when he comes out dancing to “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys wearing a robot costume that consisted of some aluminum foil and a dryer vent tubing schlong. At that moment I deemed him “Not Funny Enough For My Attention” and have ignored his existence ever since.

When ads for things that he’s in come on I flick the channel, or my eyes glaze over and I think about awesome things, like “Dazed & Confused” or that moment when you sit in the car, think that you’ve forgotten your keys, only to realize that they’re in the other pocket and you’re not going to have to get out and go back inside and look for them after all. Or maybe I’ll dream a little dream about what it would have been like if the last three seasons of Lost had been as amazing as the first three. Anything, so long as I don’t have to acknowledge the existence of another Happy Madison production.

Seaon three DID have that huge shock twist though at the end. That was a mind blower, we have to say it. That season was like a sudden come back in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. I look on that one favorably even though on the whole, you are correct, it did, also kind of suck.

I haven’t seen this, or any of Kevin James’ movies, but what strikes me as particularly off-putting about this movie is the extent to which it is an embarrasingly obvious vanity project for James. He is a big MMA fan, you can frequently see him in attendance at live UFC shows, and it is clear that this film is the closest he can come to realistically indulging in his passion for the sport. However, there’s no way a clown figure like James could be in a serious MMA movie like Warrior so he is trapped, by virtue of his own poor comedy image, into delivering a “Mall Cop/Zookeeper’s Wacky UFC Adventure” type flick.

Naw man… you’d probably be drawn to the REALISM, wouldnt you? I mean, you know theres some hot co-worker there who’s single and who flirts all over you… and the kids love music class so much it changes their LIVES. And of course, you’d go get beat up to save a coworker’s job, right? Cmon!

Just saw it this afternoon. I read your review minutes before we left.

I will admit, I laughed…. Don’t hate me….I have an explanation:

Let me remind you I have 4 daughters …. My brain has already reached the state of emotional mush….so this no-brainer of a movie was right up my alley today. I went in with low expectations, and they were met…. maybe even exceeded to a D+. After all…. Is was an afternoon out…. And popcorn, soda, and candy replaced any real meal i would have had to cook…. So, for me….. Even THIS movie was worth it. Hahaha

You dont have to make excuses if you enjoy it. I know a lot of people go in to movies predisposed to having a good time. That’s why CinemaScores skew high (this one got an A, for example)and why I have the midpoint of my grading system be a B and not a C.

But you wont be swaying my opinion any, Deb. :D

One of these days we’re going to get your fam to make that higher choice though and go see like, Argo, instead, for example! :D

“I swear, this movie insulted me by name a couple of times.” I was chuckling to myself through most of your review (which is probably more than you did for the movie), and this line just slew me. I think we’ve all seen a few films that feel like they’re a personal insult.

You’re in good company on this one. I just checked, and Here Comes the Boom is sitting at 43% on Rotten Tomatoes. So it’s not breaking Happy Madison’s streak of never earning critical approval.

Man, I had some high hopes for this movie. Okay….Kevin James (I was thisclose on spelling Kevin Smith) was great as King of Queens. Now, his movie career hasn’t been great. i think the only movie that I loved him in was “Hitch”. I thought this movie was going to be his “it” movie.